Admittedly, digital media amplifies some of their mistakes and pours salt into wounds, but the behavior and reactions aren't new. What's new is our reaction to childhood aggression -- and our increasing impatience with children and readiness to label them when they make certain mistakes or experience pain.

What caused this shift? In a word, Columbine, but not for the reasons many believe.

Dave Cullen, in his book "Columbine," wrote that after the 1999 Colorado school massacre, the media crafted the explanation that shooters Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold had been bullied. They apparently hadn't been, but the nation -- fearing a repeat of the tragedy -- adopted a zero-tolerance attitude toward many normal, albeit painful, aspects of childhood behavior and development, and defined them as bullying.

As a result, behaviors such as social exclusion, persistent unfriendliness and a nasty remark on Facebook have become intolerable acts that cause grave victimization.

NPR is worried about too many people on disability and the Pioneer Press is worried that our culture might be too worried about bullying? Has hell frozen over? Why have the propagandists decided to espouse conservative ideas? Something is rotten in Denmark.

2
posted on 03/24/2013 11:07:39 AM PDT
by blueunicorn6
("A crack shot and a good dancer")

I have a 5 year old daughter. I saw a commercial about bullying that I found totally ridiculous. They were saying that a girl was being bullied because two other girls were ignoring her at lunchtime. Give me a break. Bullying is getting in somebody’s face, pushing them around, and/or hitting them. Ignoring somebody is not bullying.

Sometimes people just don’t like each other. The way I see it, ignoring them is the best thing you can do. I guess I’m antisocial, I don’t see a need to smile and talk nice to EVERYBODY.

I remember when I was in the 2nd or 3rd grade, must have been 1953 my brother hadn't been hatched yet, I was bullied.

There was a hoard of post WW2 boys attempting to establish a pecking order. I was challenged by a Red Headed spot head. My Old Man had a rule, always fight back or I will tan your a$$, so I fought back and won. The Red Head came whining afterwords about me almost breaking his face, never had a problem there after.

A lot of liberals think that conservatism is dead. Deprived of the accountability imposed by a natural adversary, sensible liberals will have to tend to their fiscal house themselves. I see it daily in my very wealthy town; few admit to being Republicans but almost everyone is zealous to protect property values, not accrue unfunded liabilities, and guarantee a proper return on investment on the tax levy.

OMG - didn’t you realize that you probably caused this poor soul to suffer from years of PTSD? By your refusal to lay down and let him beat you, you have permanently damaged his self esteem.

He is probably now a lowly, homeless person with no sense of self worth. He is a lost soul amongst men.

The proper course of action would have been to go tell the teacher, so she could counsel him, so he could then have all his buddies join in, thereby ensuring the mental health of a whole gang of, I am sure, fine young men. /S

Girls hang in gaggles and will rip the heart out of any other girl in order to be first hen. Guys pound on each other and can be friends after wards. Girls on the other hand destroy the competition, shunning, rumors, and other general nastiness. Men get physical women use words.

I ended up becoming friendly with two of the kids bullying me. The others turned into decent human beings by the end of high school.

Of course the school should intervene when there is serious bullying going on, and not let the inmates run the show as they often used to, but there is no need to have records following the bully up the grades.

I hope for your daughter’s sake you figure out that the above is exactly how “nice” girls from “nice” families bully other girls. Unlike boys, they use isolation to establish and enforce the savage pecking order. And to a kid, it’s every bit as vicious as a right-cross to the jaw.

You sit alone at lunch day in and day out trying to choke down a peanut butter sandwich, your shame and humiliation on display, and then tell that kid it isn’t “bullying.”

It depends. It’s one thing if your entire class isn’t talking to you because of rumors or something. Literally two people doing it, no way.

And like I said in previous posts, maybe I’m more antisocial than most. In high school, I had 4-5 really good friends and the rest of them could go take a flying leap. I’d rather have a few really good friends than 200 acquaintances, I’ve never been the type that needs to run in a herd.

Elaborate the details of such circumstances? Seems to me that pops might have taught you how to fight back when cornered, not bust your butt and leave you to figure out what to do. One is example and encouragement, the other is coercion.

26
posted on 03/26/2013 9:59:52 PM PDT
by HiTech RedNeck
(How long before all this "fairness" kills everybody, even the poor it was supposed to help???)

And of course the point of the BULLY is to coerce... doesn’t seem very good example of the father to punish someone who gets hurt in a fight, even if they fought as they ought to. As if suffering in the fight wasn’t enough. That is the kind of smash mouth spirit I speak of. Jesus said take a sword, Jesus did not say I will punish you if you have to use it but get hurt anyhow.

27
posted on 03/26/2013 10:06:41 PM PDT
by HiTech RedNeck
(How long before all this "fairness" kills everybody, even the poor it was supposed to help???)

Disclaimer:
Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual
posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its
management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the
exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.